Help us tell the impact story of Bank On Greater Milwaukee! We are asking all coalition members to share with us information about their financial education activities in 2022. This is a key way that our coalition works together - by connecting partners and people to banking access and financial education opportunities.  Fill out the form here and tell us what you did! We'll compile this information in our 2021 BOGM Annual Report, currently in production. Highlighting our BOGM Chairs Over the next year we would like to highlight the work of our BOGM Chairs and Leadership Team, so you can learn more about their work and organizations. Our first installment features Kristen Ruhl, Heather MacKinnon, and Krystina Kohler. Check out the profile here and look for additional features in upcoming updates! Constance Alberts was featured in a Fox 6 story discussing borrower risks with high-interest installment loans. When we are in an emergency, stressful, dire situation, we usually will pull on whoever is going to give [the loan] first," Alberts told Contact 6. Vew the interview here.  Constance Alberts worked with AARP to do a PSA on safe and affordable checking accounts during tax season. View the PSA here.  Reminder to help promote the Advocacy Map!  This tool was created to provide awareness and increase equity and access to financial and banking services. The Advocacy Map is an indicator map that uses census data to look at indicators such as household income, race and ethnicity, disability data, unemployment and more. Check out our Blog Post about the Map and view the map itself here. We've put together a document of resources to help promote (social media posts, images, newsletter blurbs) for you to use. Access it here. With the new year just around the corner, CFE Fund is working on getting all financial institutions with a Bank On account recertified with the updated National Account Standards for 2023-2024. We have sent an email to our financial institution partners with instructions on the process. CFE Fund is aiming to finalize in mid-December, so please remind any financial institution partners to submit for recertification at their earliest convenience. If they have questions reach out to David Rothstein  drothstein@cfefund.org.  In Search of Presenters! Bank On is looking for financial literacy presenters that can present in Spanish. We are starting to get more requests - please contact Constance Alberts (constance@uedawi.org) to learn more.  Help our work grow! Help us spread the word about Bank On Greater Milwaukee and Partners work by connecting individuals at your workplace and in your network to Bank On!

 

COALITION MEMBER HIGHLIGHTS

SecureFutures is looking for around 100 volunteers to serve in the Money Coach program for the spring semester! They have a goal to serve 20 sites in the Milwaukee area.  Please check out the volunteer recruitment flyer for a program overview and the coach role descriptions for more details. 

If you are interested in becoming a Money Coach for the spring semester, please take one minute to complete the volunteer interest form. As part of the recruitment process, they provide an incentive for those who refer friends, colleagues, neighbors, etc. Individuals who make a referral, as well as the referred volunteer who commits to becoming a Money Coach, will be entered for a giveaway! SecureFutures is requesting that people spread the word to friends, colleagues, and others in your network who might be interested in becoming a Money Coach!

COALITION MEMBER JOB OPENINGS

SECTOR NEWS & RESOURCES

The Bank On National Data Hub has released the 2021 data! The new data from the Bank On National Data Hub (BOND Hub) is now available! In partnership with the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, BOND Hub aggregates data from financial institutions with a Bank On certified account, collecting information across 25 metrics related to account openings, usage and consistency, and online access.  Key 2021 findings include more than 14.1 million certified accounts have been opened to date, including nearly 457,000 at community financial institutions; Bank On accounts have been opened across 85% of US zip codes. 3.4 million accounts were opened in 2021 alone. In 2021, 80% of customers (2.5 million people) who opened a Bank On certified account were new to the financial institution. The Hub includes interactive maps and reports on different data points.

Please help us spread the word! We’ve created social media language and images, as well as coalition talking points, about the report and its findings. Additionally, we’ve updated our BOND Hub tools so you can play with the data yourself – you can look at the data by zipcode, city, and county. 

Bank On was recently featured a recent article from Finextra, discussing data from the most recent FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households and the positive trends in reaching the unbanked, including shifts that have occurred as part of the COVID-19 pandemic. Jonathan Mintz from the CFE Fund noted that "banking is actually fundamental to all sorts of other social investments in improving people's conditions..." Read more here>>

The CFPB recently released this Data Spotlight, Financial Well-Being in America, From 2017-2020, which shows "that Americans experienced an average increase in their financial well-being between 2017 and 2020, likely boosted by the large government response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However a deeper analysis shows that the largest increases were experienced by those with higher incomes and that approximately one-third of Americans saw a decline in their financial well-being." Read the CFPB Data Spotlight here. 

Bank On partners with ChexSystems to offer any participating financial institution the Bank On-specific customer review strategy, including risk factors and more. View this webinar from earlier this year. Bank On/ChexSystems Partnership and check out this flier. 

SecureFutures Money Path has launched! Money Path takes students through a personalized, technology-based experience in which they explore and compare different college and career paths, calculate the related education costs and reinforce personal finance concepts for increased confidence and readiness. Learn more about the program at: https://moneypath.securefutures.org/

NCRC recently released a new report documenting a groundbreaking study using mystery shoppers in Baltimore, MD. It showed that real estate appraisers are providing better service to White homeowners than Black homeowners, and assigning higher values to homes that they believe to be White-owned. A Freddie Mac study conducted in 2021 shows that 15.4% of homes in Latino census tracts appraise for less than contract price and black census tracts is 12.4%.Yet and white census tracts is 7.4%. The Brookings Institution in 2018 estimated that black neighborhoods are undervalued on average by $48,000 NCRC has published a report on systemic testing in Baltimore, looking at how race affects valuation and discriminatory treatment. View the NCRC Appraisal Bias Investigation. 

The 2022 Prosperity Now Summit was held this past September, featuring sessions on racial economic equity, wealth building strategies, programs that poverty and access to credit and more. Hosted biannually, attendees come to the three-day gathering to network, learn, discover and inform new solutions, deepen shared understanding of core issues, build collective power, and take action for transformative change. Check out links to the session materials here